Engaging Biblical Women

True, women are occasionally honored, but they are marginalized at the same time; rivalry among women receives a different kind of attention than rivalry among men.

From Deborah to Esther (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003)

By Lillian Klein
September 2003

As a female, I have had
difficulty relating to biblical narratives. The paradigm roles of the male
protagonists are always clear at one level: obedience to God and diligence, with
emphasis shifting between the two. Women’s narrative roles are similar, only the
obedience required is to her human counterpart who may–or may not–deserve her
subservience.1 Women are usually presented as peripheral to a narrative, perhaps
as reproductive necessities, sometimes as difficult and potentially dangerous,
occasionally as central, but almost always subject to male controls. Women are
often nameless, mostly without genealogies, which effectively renders them
without existence. Once they have accomplished their narrative “mission,” women
tend to disappear from the text without further ado. It is rare indeed to hear
of a woman’s death.2 True, women are occasionally honored, but they are
marginalized at the same time; rivalry among women receives a different kind of
attention than rivalry among men. How should a woman relate to these roles?

As a biblical and literary scholar functioning in the contemporary world, I
entertained the idea that a closer analysis of biblical texts would not only
help me find my place in biblical narratives but also clarify my place in the
“sexual politics” of daily life: the give and take within a society that
reflects gender valuation and defines gender roles. These concerns are addressed
in From Deborah to Esther: Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible.3

It seems safe to infer that women are found in the fringes of most–but not
all–narratives because it reflects their role in the social world of the
narrative. The laws of the Torah do not prescribe such limitations except in
periods associated with menstruation, sexual activity, and
childbirth (e.g., Lev 12.6; 15.9).4 Men are similarly “unclean” after sexual
intercourse (Lev 15:16) and other, non-sexual conditions. The sexual activity of
women is, like that of men, restricted to marital relationships; men are further
cautioned from incestuous relationships (Lev 21.10-21); Num 5.11-31). The Torah
makes little mention of laws restricting females in activity, but the narratives
of the Torah do depict females, including wives, restricted to minor appearances
and being regarded as sexual objects, exchanged like objects by males (Gen
20.2-7). It is the narratives, not the laws, that establish the roles of women
in various temporal phases of biblical literature.

Indeed, in Proverbs 31, an
ideal Israelite woman is shown to be active and commanding in the marketplace as
well as in the home: this woman purchases property and manages finances while
her husband apparently has nothing to do but “sit among the elders of the land
at the gates” (31.28). The unusual freedom and authority granted this ideal
woman may be theoretical as well as ideal; at best, they reflect a specific and
limited position in the long history described in biblical narratives. Yet even
this poetic paean to the ideal housewife is constrained between warnings and
males, preceding and following the lines of tribute, about the dangers of femmes
fatales: “Give not your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings”
(31.3). “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain” (31.30).

In biblical narratives, the world outside the home is the domain of men; within
the home, the women have more authority: essentially, authority over their
children. Such social structures are to be found to this day among some Middle
Eastern religious groups, and they are a valuable resource for studying the
social milieu of the Hebrew Bible.5 Then, as now, women restricted to the home
have limited if any education and little exposure; as a result, they have little
opportunity to celebrate or record their relatively uneventful lives. The men
are more likely to lead lives of power: biblical narratives describe male
control or the control biblical males desire more than one another and over
females and the struggles to achieve and maintain that power.

When female figures are introduced into male-dominant narratives, they may
provide peripheral information about the male protagonist and the prevalent
sexual politics of that narrative period and place. However, the modern reader
must distance him/herself of the idea of equality of the sexes (a relatively
modern concept and one that has yet to achieve full realization). When angels
visit Abraham and predict the birth of a son to the aging couple, they react
very differently indeed to similar responses from husband and wife. Both laugh
when they hear this unexpected news (Gen 17.17; 18.12), but only Sarah is
rebuked for laughing . . . and laughing “to herself.” Intimidated, she denies
laughing and is again repudiated. This slight passage indicates how women may be
oppressed and made fearful by strangers and by husbands who do nothing to
protect them, how women are shown to resort to lying to protect themselves, ands
how men easily bond to maintain control over women at every turn.

As societies develop and change, so does the role of women; biblical narratives
reveal subtle periodization of women’s roles. An obvious fluctuation is the role
of foreign women among the tribes: the story of Ruth celebrates full acceptance
of Ruth, a Moabite woman,6 whereas the narrative of Dinah (Genesis 34) describes
the treacherous murder of the whole town of Shechem because a foreigner dares to
love a daughter of Israel. It is worth noting that Israelite males are rebuked
time and time again for taking foreign wives at various phases–which indicates
that the practice was fairly common; however, a singular instance where an
Israelite female is desired by a foreign male is emphatically rejected by
wholesale murder.

Biblical narratives suggest social and textual boundaries for interaction
between the sexes. The value ascribed to each of the genders is a case in point.
There is practically no mention of daughters in biblical narratives; only the
birth of sons is noted unless and until a daughter becomes a focal point; for
example, Dinah (Gen 30.21; 34). As mentioned, females are frequently unnamed
whereas their male counterparts have names and often genealogies. Although this
device is used to ironic effect in the story of Manoah and his wife (Judg
13.2–20),7 the major implication is the lack of value ascribed to females in the
dominant culture. Devaluation is yet another means of control.8

Rivalry is another aspect that seems to be gender specific. When males combat
for power, it is often viewed as heroic; when women desire the same, within
their already constrained realm, they are made to seem petty. The power that
women desire is usually limited to that associated with motherhood. A married
woman who does not bear a child suffers a severe loss in social status and even
her livelihood may be a fragile entity. That women manipulate and maneuver in
order to assure themselves of childbirth is consistent with the social reality.

Some narratives disclose males’ wishful thinking and projection in stories about
women. Rivalry among females depicts women fighting among themselves for the
love of a man and even trading a night of copulation for the promise of
pregnancy (Gen 30.1-24). Of course, female rivalry over a man is very flattering
to the male ego and sense of power. It is not surprising that rivalry among
women was encouraged or at least projected as normal in these stories. Married
women are portrayed as so zealous of bearing children that they seem never to
“have a headache.” Is this social oppression or male fantasy? Biblical men are
never infertile, either; that problem always resides with the woman, sometimes
because yet another male figure, God, has “closed up her womb.” One narrative
suggests the ultimate male punishment of a wife: refusal to cohabit so that she
cannot bear children (Michal, in 2 Sam 6.23). And if women act unjustly among
themselves, abusing power given to them, as in the Sarah and Hagar narrative,
surely a male divine figure will come along to justify the outcome of the
situation (Gen 16.1-15).

Several narratives do have female protagonists, with males playing “background”
roles. Once again, the story of Ruth is a good example. Naomi and Ruth do
determine the actions of the narrative, but they clearly act within the
parameters of a male-determinant society. They know how to manipulate in order
to achieve their goals, and manipulation is a power attributed to women. In this
narrative, even sexual manipulation by a woman is not condemned, presumably
because the objective is fertility (and implicit economic security), not
personal pleasure or power. Generally, biblical narratives repudiate a woman’s
exerting control, but apparently she may manipulate in order to achieve specific
and limited goals, so long as these are goals valued by the larger society.
Bathsheba is another mistress balancing these elements.

Female sexuality is an interesting variable. Wives and mothers are not
attributed with sexuality; women who are clearly enticing to males are usually
regarded as extremely dangerous, inherently evil. Women are shown to use their
sexuality as a manipulative tool to various effects (Ruth 3.7; Judges 16); in
general, males condemn female sexuality. The obvious basis for male need to
control female sexuality is the problem of identifying the father of a woman’s
child, but is there more? Female sexuality may be used to assert a kind of
control: women have something they can give–or deny–to men. Men want to desire
women, but they do not want to be denied by women. Women who are independent in
their sexuality are exerting control over men and are therefore potentially
dangerous and evil.

As a scholar of biblical texts, my first avenue of approach to a text is to
invoke the entire array of literary-critical techniques, from classical to
contemporary. I have found that “point of view” is extremely valuable for both
narrative and individual speakers and that it is used in a surprisingly modern
way in these ancient texts. A relatively modern literary technique, structural
analysis, has informed much of my work. But I have also drawn from contemporary
sociological and psychological approaches to understand implicit as well as
explicit messages in the text. As techniques for analysis of human experience
become available, they must be absorbed into the methodology of the literary
critic.

Biblical narratives about how women have coped with social constraints are as
varied as life itself. Each story describes different circumstances and
different responses, often buried in the subtext rather than explicit in the
overtly male-oriented narrative. Biblical narratives of females coping with
male-imposed constraints, of living meaningful lives within social boundaries or
by extending those boundaries, remain inherently relevant to contemporary life.

As a girl, I sought to identify with the female characters of the Bible. It was
difficult; they were confusing: subordinated and yet as independent as Sarah,
misunderstood and mistreated as Dinah, heroic and unjustly punished as Miriam.
As a woman, I became more interested in how those women were shown to cope with
the constraints of their varied social situations: from ancestresses living in
tents to Sheba and Esther, for instance, who dwelled in palaces; from the
tensions of sibling rivalry as between Jacob’s wives to the tensions within
ruling families, like those of Athaliah, mother of the king of Judah; from the
many nameless women whose deeds are lost to them and to us–to those women who
command our attention. As a student of literature, I have been fascinated with
the allusiveness of biblical prose, always luring and never allowing the reader
to reach an exclusive “truth.” Most recently, as a biblical scholar, I have
sought to explore the possibilities of these various facets of interest through
careful literary readings of several narratives. The result is From Deborah to
Esther: Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible.

NOTES

[1]
Gender subservience is
inherently objectionable, but it remains viable to this day, subtly as well as
overtly, in culturally determined patterns.

[2]
For example, the
deaths of Naomi and Ruth (Ruth 4) are not mentioned nor that of Hannah (1 Samuel
21) or Rahab (Joshua 2 and 6).

[3]
The examples provided
in these comments intentionally avoid the narratives discussed in the book.

[4]
Norman Gottwald
suggests that the “stigmatization of menstruation as a ‘blemish’ strengthened
the marginalization of women in public and cultic roles....” (Gottwald’s
italics); The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1985), 478.